A 14-year-old Missouri girl who thought she was shooting a large white-tailed buck instead took down an elk.

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Missouri conservation agent Tom Strother says the girl was hunting with her dad Saturday when she took the shot. When her dad realized the animal was an elk, he called a conservation agent.

The Springfield News-Leader reports that Missouri currently has no hunting season for elk. A herd is being grown in southeast Missouri after elk were reintroduced at Peck Ranch Conservation Area in 2011.

Strother says the elk shot Saturday was 200 miles away from the Peck Ranch herd, between Hallsville and Centralia.

The carcass is undergoing tests, to see if it’s diseased or to get clues where it came from.

No enforcement actions have been taken against the young hunter, but the girl received a significant amount of backlash online, according to KMOV.

Others were less harsh, with one person arguing “anyone knowledgeable would be able to tell the difference between a bull elk and a buck deer."

Many people agreed there was no excuse for the mistake.

"There is a clear difference between an elk and a whitetail. I'd hate to be anywhere near someone with a gun who could not tell the difference. Shame on her for taking an animal out of season, and good for the conservation officers who confiscated it. I've hunted since I was little, and there is no excuse for not knowing what you're shooting," one person wrote.

The girl's father has not taken kindly to the criticism, saying he was upset by the comments.

"There's no sense in it, people doing that," he said. "Don't come at my daughter saying lock her away. Wow. If my daughter gets fined, I'll pay it and move on. So be it. We'll deal with it."